Well, Super Bowl is just hours away and I as am excited about this year’s game as ever. It promises to be a thrilling classic match-up between…uhhh…hold on just a second while I Google that. Okay, looks like it’s going to be the New Orleans Saints against the Indianapolis Colts.

Okay, you got me. I am not a pro football fan. Not in the least. During the regular season, I’ll watch for a little while since it seems to be something I’m supposed to do as a man. But after not too long, I’m looking for something to read or something else to do while The Wife watches the game (messed up, huh?). Now I know that this post will be submitted as prosecutor’s exhibit #1 when the Man Club takes me to court to revoke my membership, but I just don’t care.

Super Bowl is a different story, but it’s not about the game itself. Every year, we get together with several other families and make a day of it. There’s always lots of food, fun, and laughs. As for the game, I’m all about the commercials. As we all know, the advertisers turn it up a notch and really try to entertain us to keep our eyes glued on what they are trying to sell us. We get to find out which sappy Budweiser horse commercial will make The Wife cry; how close GoDaddy will go to the edge of FCC regulations; and see the creative jabs that Coke and Pepsi take at each other. Of course there are always a handful that make you ask: “They spent $3 million for that?”

You’ll catch me nodding off in complete boredom during actual game play, so I just ask that the others wake me up for the commercials and maybe the half-time show. I’m going to see if I can con the clan into TiVo-ing the game. Then we’ll start watching about 2 hours into the actual game and (pause for genius moment) fast forward through the game to see only the commercials! I love it! That’s what needs to happen to create a completely perfect Super Bowl event–at least from my standpoint.

The Older Daughter has been invited by her grandma to take a 15-day European cruise this summer. (I am very jealous, but that’s another story.) Her passport expired a few weeks back, so we needed to get it renewed. We went to the State Department’s website to find the requirements. It said that we needed to bring her old passport or her birth certificate, and that we could pay by cash or check. Knowing how the government operates, I asked The Wife to call the local office to make sure the details from the website were correct. She did and they confirmed everything. Great, right? Not so much.

When they got to the office, they were told that she needed her old passport and her birth certificate. Well that sucks. My worst fears were realized in that no matter how hard you try to make dealings with the government easier, they always go awry. Anyway, they headed back home to pick up the birth certificate. They made it back to the office, got all the paperwork filled out and processed. Then it was time to pay. The Wife forked over the $100 fee in cash. That’s when they told her that they don’t accept cash. You’re kidding me right? This after they said that was an acceptable form of payment on their website and The Wife double-checked over the phone? Not to mention that every Federal Reserve Note says “THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE”.

I just wanted to rant about this to you and I hate to turn this political, but think about this for a moment. Think about this experience at the passport office; think about what a nightmare the DMV is; think about the IRS. You may have had other experiences interacting with the government. It’s nearly always a nightmare. The crush of massive bureaucracy and rampant incompetency is staggering.

How can anyone out there really think that the federal government can do a better job with health care? Universal health care would be an unmitigated disaster. Think of your DMV experience…that’s what going to the doctor or hospital will be like. We’ve got to stand against this.

Okay, I couldn’t resist creating a “sister” meme to the previous one I just posted. This one addresses wants instead of needs.

Here’s how it works: Google “[your first name] wants” and share the first 10 results. That’s it: it is that simple. But be honest! I’m not going to formally tag anyone, but if you read this consider yourself tagged anyway.

Bryan wants..Pringles (very, very true…I love them)

Bryan wants..to be teacher (not really, the pay kind of blows and I don’t have the patience)

Bryan wants..Congress (only if I can add “to burn in hell” to the phrase)

Bryan wants..my penis (no, I’ll kindly thank you to keep it to yourself)

Bryan wants..to be an MLG pro (Major League Gaming pro? hmmm…now that would be a fun job)

I knew it. According to an article on cnn.com, women have more germs than men. Finally, a reason to brag about being a man.

“The researchers aren’t sure why women harbored a greater variety of bacteria than men, but Fierer suggested it may have to so with the acidity of the skin. Knight said men generally have more acidic skin than women.

Other possibilities are differences in sweat and oil gland production between men and women, the frequency of moisturizer or cosmetics applications, skin thickness or hormone production, he said.”

See, it’s all that darn makeup and other crap you put on your skin. Try the natural look. I like it.

Now you might think that this would give me pause when considering kissing a woman. Nope. It is simply too much fun–I’ll take my chances. I guess I could just restrict myself to family members though. In fact, The Wife would probably prefer that. 🙂

It seemed that the night had such promise. After all, it was Halloween on a Friday night. No need to watch the clock and worry about getting to bed at a certain time. Just party and watch scary movies as late as we want, right? Not so much. In the end, it was a pretty big letdown on all fronts…

Of course, the Older Daughter is too old for trick-or-treating. Instead, she spent the evening/night at a friends house. No surprise there.

The Younger Daughter also went to a friend’s house and her mom took them trick-or-treating.

Now that we live out in the country, we don’t get any trick-or-treater visiting the house.

Our best friends have traditionally joined us for an all night scary movie marathon when Halloween is on a weekend. However, they were unable to join us this year.

The Wife and I stayed home and watched some horror movies. Unfortunately, we chose movies that we had already seen multiple times, so we found ourselves actually laughing at the movies rather than being scared.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a nice quiet evening together. However, this was the first time since we became parents that we didn’t take kids out trick-or-treating. It think we were both mourning the passage of yet another parenthood ritual as we watch our girls grown up much faster than we would like. Sure, the Younger Daughter still has probably 1-2 years left, so we’ll probably be able to enjoy it at least one more outing. However, the writing is clearly on the wall.

As you learned in an earlier post, for the safety of human life and property, I really should stay out of the kitchen. But, alas, I cannot resist the occasional urge to try and cook something.

Several weeks ago, I was at a friend’s house. We made up sandwiches and they warmed them up in a toaster oven. I was amazed at how much better it tasted warmed up with the cheese melted…mmmmm. Last night I was home alone (perhaps a dangerous thing just by itself) and decided to duplicate this yummy concoction. We don’t have a toaster oven, so I thought a normal oven on broil would probably accomplish the same thing. I turned on the oven, then went over and slapped some turkey and cheddar on a couple of slices of bread. Then I placed it in the oven. I then took about 5 minutes to check out some of my favorite blogs. I mean, what else would I do right? When I opened up the oven, I found the bread on top burnt to a crisp. Then when I actually ate the sandwich, I found the meat on the bottom side still cold. Sheesh…I should have just stuck with an entirely cold sandwich. Oh well, The Wife brought home pizza and saved the day!

Despite the tsunami of negativity in my previous post (Concert Rants), the concert was actually awesome. I didn’t include the most awesome thing of all that happened. It’s a long story, but we had to take separate vehicles to get there. While waiting for the rest of the family, the Older Daughter dropped by the sponsoring radio station’s booth and signed up for a contest to win an upgrade to front-and-center seats.

Well, as we were about to be seated, she got a call that she had won! So she and The Wife sat in the front row and had a great time. It was an added treat for The Wife on her birthday.